Don’t go Raking my heart

Great work from the ISN crew to dominate an epic task with Cultivate, horticultural charity at their new project at Popesfield allotments.

We began with a walk over to Ealing common to wake up those key gardening muscle and joints, and get our coordination on point before the fun and games began.

Heading back to Popesfield, we met Romina and the team from Cultivate and heard about all the amazing community engaging and developing work that Cultivate do in West London.

We split up into groups for a variety of tasks and got cracking!

We had the trench crew dig to their delight, finishing off the the long trench to allow the weed membrane to be weighted down to allow the soil to be in perfect condition for growing season!

Behind the shed we had 'team transformation'!! They cleared, shifted, and carried away the overgrown area before designing a brilliant space prime to be used in the community workshops.

Then we had the Raking crew who embarked on an epic task of leveling the main growing bed. Raking soil from the high ground to the low ground with a very labour-intensive shift put in!

As we gathered momentum we managed to add a few other jobs in by removing 25 heavy broken wooden pallets; spreading a tonne of wood chip to the recently cut back areas, and removing all the very spiky weeds that were beginning to take over the main growing area.

We put in so much graft over a near 2-hour session, the bonfire pile was reaching the sky and ready for a big burn, to create a nutrient-rich compost to be used to help the gardens growth over the coming months.

Thank you all so much for your great efforts, hope enjoyed the session!

Joel